Alexander Onischuk called winning the 2006 U.S Championship the happiest day of his life. Not that he's unused to
winning. Alex placed first in over twenty tournaments, from super strong Round
Robins in exotic Beijing and chilly Siberia to the 2000 Ukrainian Championship.
Alex became a GM in 1994 at the age of nineteen, but this hardly qualified
among his happiest moments, because that was a matter of "when, not
if."

Alex is known for his professional, solid style. His repertoire is very well
analyzed, but it is also more predictable than most top U.S. players. Some of
his lines as Black (particularly in Double King Pawn games) allow a weaker but
well prepared opponent to force a draw. Such a strategy makes it hard to win
clear first in a Swiss, which usually requires a huge plus score.

Alex ran into a typical roadblock at his first U.S. Championship, where he
placed eighth. One opponent traded queens into a dead draw, following a
previous game by Alex. The advantage of having a stable opening repertoire is
that you're bound to know the strategies and details of your lines better than
if you played four different openings.

Alex thinks that what separates him from Grandmasters
of a slightly lower stature is his superior understanding of the game, gained
from working with elite players, including former World Champions Anatoly
Karpov and Veselin Topalov (Read
his uschess.org report from this match.) In addition to seconding Karpov in
matches against Anand (1997) and training him for his victorious match against
Kasparov (2002, Alex got the chance to play blitz with the Russian legend.
"The first time we played" Alex said, "I won with black, and
thought I'd do pretty well. Then I lost 25 games in a row. I was already a GM,
and didn't think I could lose 25 games in a row to anyone!"

Alex arrived in Baltimore in 2001 on the wings of a diversity visa, which he
won in the Diversity lottery program. The program, designed to offer visas to
American hopefuls all over the world, may soon be discontinued pending a vote
in the Senate. For five years he played for the championship college team, UMBC
(University of Maryland Baltimore Country), while studying linguistics at the university.
He graduated in the spring of '06.

If he could play any champion from history, he would
play Paul Morphy. "I'd play 1...e5, and he'd go for the King's Gambit. I'd
probably lose.

Alex is a valuable American team player, and was crucial to America in two bronze Olympic medal finishes in a row, in Turin, Italy 2006 and Dresden, Germany 2008. The following win over his previous team, Ukraine, helped the U.S. score a 3.5-.5 rout and clinch bronze medals:

Alexander also picked up a gold medal for his board two performance at the 2010 World Team Championships in Turkey, where the United States earned silver medals.